Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

mikehadlow.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#141

Post by paulcole »

mildbow wrote: post #77
paulcole wrote: post #27

There's a big gulf between knowing how to code and working as a professional software developer. I'm a writer for a marketing agency, but I write Google App Scripts, JavaScript, and PHP on a regular basis to automate tasks, try out ideas I have, etc. There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, but I know how to code enough to help make my professional/personal life easier and more fun. Isn't the…

There are people saying they will hire you. See how much they want to pay you and if the position sounds like a good stepping stone. See if you can talk yourself into giving it a try. Personally, I think you probably aren't ready to actually interview and land a dev job. But, if people are saying they would hire you[0], this is a great chance to take them up on their word and in doing so, get your foot in the door. […

Haha, yes, if I wasn't very happy in my current position, I'd take them up on it :)

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#142

Post by zaphar »

paulcole wrote: post #71
logicallee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, I'll hire you.

Here's what made me say that (and it wasn't humblebragging): I've worked in a marketing role in a software company and realize that I don't have the understanding of how to contribute in a meaningful way to a team-based professional programming project. My workflow isn't ideal: bang my head against a wall, Google my way out, copy/paste/edit until things work, and move on. Because I'm generally on a mission to get som…

Your workflow is pretty much the same as 90% of the other professional programmers out there. The walls change as you get more experienced and you copy paste less as you're toolbox grows but unless you are in university working on a CS PhD or the senior dev/fellow at a Google or Facebook working on something no one else has already solved then that workflow is 90% of every programmers workflow.

You might start as a junior dev but within a year you'll be talking the lingo, your toolbox will have exploded, and you'll be well on your way.

You have already demonstrated that you have the one quality necessary to be a good programmer. The ability to think abstractly and manipulate and express those thoughts in a concrete manner. Everything else is just practice and hard work.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#143

Post by acveilleux »

vonmoltke wrote: post #116
Alex3917 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way I could work as a professional software developer Actually given the way our economy is currently structured, it's easier to get a good job as a developer having never written a line of code than it is to get a good job as a marketer even with 5+ years of experience. It might take you a couple tries to pass the interviews, but that doesn't matter because getting interviews is relatively easy. (Albeit…

I think you are overstating how easy it is to get interviews for development positions. From what I have seen, someone without some demonstrated coding experience, professional or hobby, won't even get the time of day from companies looking to hire developers. They will never get to the take-home assignment phase.

It all depends... The question boils down to "how much of a shit job are you willing to go after"?

There's always a few programming jobs that no one wants because the pay is awful and the company/job description is crap (PHP web apps for 28k/year? ROFLOL). But then they act as proof of employability for slightly better companies and soon you have 12-24 months of "professional" experience and landing interviews at OK companies is not unreasonable.

That's how a lot of us, no degree type, got our first foot in the door.

IT systems type roles are also a good segue into programming roles. And IT admin roles are so much easier to land.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#144

Post by robotnoises »

For the most part I agree. However, part of the reason why other professions like "doctor" or "architect" don't permit crash course bootcamp-style training for its entrants is because, for the most part, the stakes are much higher. Sure, there are lots of high-stakes programming jobs, but for the most part, being a bad programmer won't kill anyone.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#145

Post by ryandrake »

paulcole wrote: post #27

There's a big gulf between knowing how to code and working as a professional software developer. I'm a writer for a marketing agency, but I write Google App Scripts, JavaScript, and PHP on a regular basis to automate tasks, try out ideas I have, etc. There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, but I know how to code enough to help make my professional/personal life easier and more fun. Isn't the…

The funny (not ha-ha, but funny-ridiculous) thing is that you'd no doubt be perfectly able to work as a professional software developer, but you'd never get past a software interview.

A lot of software interviews I've seen (and had to sit through) tended to be about tangential stuff like language minutiae, and whether you have memorized the Big-O complexity of the interviewer's favorite algorithm, and can you invert a binary tree without looking it up (because obviously we all code without internet access). Very computer-sciencey.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#146

Post by bovermyer »

Alex3917 wrote: post #75
bovermyer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you seriously just suggest that the majority of American adults are illiterate? I'd love to see the source you base that claim on.

> I'd love to see the source you base that claim on. Like the government's official data on adult literacy? http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF After 1994 they got rid of the 'advanced' literacy ability category, corresponding to roughly the level academic journal articles are written at, because not enough Americans qualified. So currently the top literacy level is 'proficient', which is roughly the minimum leve…

First, thank you for providing a credible source.

However, linguistic constructs in most programming languages are not what I'd consider advanced English. A C++ program is hardly written in Shakespearean style, for example. And many words in programming languages do not exist in English per se; e.g., "def" from Python is not a word.

So, programming requires a more basic understanding of written English than you seem to imply.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#147

Post by acveilleux »

paulcole wrote: post #71
logicallee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, I'll hire you.

Here's what made me say that (and it wasn't humblebragging): I've worked in a marketing role in a software company and realize that I don't have the understanding of how to contribute in a meaningful way to a team-based professional programming project. My workflow isn't ideal: bang my head against a wall, Google my way out, copy/paste/edit until things work, and move on. Because I'm generally on a mission to get som…

The difference between that and the step up is if you don't spend some time understanding why the cut-and-paste code worked and learning the how and why of things.

I've friends who are in the same boat and invariably the excuse is "I don't have the time to learn the theory, I have other things to do." Because of that, their workflow never really gets any easier. That's fine if coding is that side thing you do to make your job easier. That fails when it's what you want or need to do as an end to itself.

Also, I don't mean theory in the sense of the MIT "Introductions to Algorithms" book, I mean in the sense of the standard library, idioms, syntax and common usage of the languages and libraries you use.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#148

Post by ryandrake »

beachstartup wrote: post #54
paulcole wrote: post #27

There's a big gulf between knowing how to code and working as a professional software developer. I'm a writer for a marketing agency, but I write Google App Scripts, JavaScript, and PHP on a regular basis to automate tasks, try out ideas I have, etc. There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, but I know how to code enough to help make my professional/personal life easier and more fun. Isn't the…

well, it's a gradient, and the only way to move up is years of practice. i liken it to any skilled trade. you can probably fix your kitchen table or change the brake rotor on your car but you're probably not qualified to work at a bespoke furniture shop or the porsche dealership - but you could be, if you really tried, or if you got lucky. and if you did get lucky, you could probably figure it out with some help. som…

You don't need aptitude to practice.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#149

Post by hepburnave »

vinceguidry wrote: post #42
acconrad wrote: post #17

Hard programming is harder than you think. Coding schools are mostly teaching CRUD web development and a watered-down version of data science aimed at business analysts, which isn't that hard. You're not going to get folks lining up to take an embedded systems, graphics, or compiler bootcamp.

Web development (it's more than just CRUD) is hard. Even with the best web development framework, the state of the art in tooling, you're looking at at least a year of focused study before really being able to take a job. It doesn't require hard math, but it's still hard in that the sheer number of languages, tools, best practices, technologies is daunting. And they keep changing. My father is an electrician, after l…

God yes, the orgy of tooling and frameworks to do web development... I farking hate it, and I do this for a living :) That hamster threadmill of web development is pure self inflicted torture.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#150

Post by vinceguidry »

serge2k wrote: post #129
vinceguidry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web development (it's more than just CRUD) is hard. Even with the best web development framework, the state of the art in tooling, you're looking at at least a year of focused study before really being able to take a job. It doesn't require hard math, but it's still hard in that the sheer number of languages, tools, best practices, technologies is daunting. And they keep changing. My father is an electrician, after l…

> I've seen devs who were perfectly comfortable with all the math and "real dev" practically break down when presented with a web project. More than one of them admitted to me after beating their heads against it for a few weeks that it was harder than it looked. Because they haven't done it before. Hard because you have to learn the framework of the week, deal with shitty tooling, and leverage design skills you have…

> hard because you have to design and build a complex system with strict requirements and intractable problems.

That sounds like web dev. The intractability of the problems comes from the fashion-like nature of how often things change and the speed at which they have to change. The more you learn, the more you can do, but also the requirements will change as a function of your abilities. Maintaining an business advantage demands it.

The framework doesn't have to change, the tooling can be self-designed, the design skills can be learned, and web dev remains hard and interesting. I understand that lots of devs don't appreciate it, but I still find it interesting after 5 years, and expect it to remain so after 20.

I liken it to a craft, take woodworking as an example. Sure, anybody can learn to bang nails into wood. But the way you hit a nail into a piece of wood the first time is going to be way different than the way you bang it in after 5 years, and it's going to be a totally different experience to the way you bang it in after 40 years.

There's a definite craft to choosing frameworks, growing tooling, and fashioning design to solve interface problems.

Is it as hard as hard math? No. Is it harder than 99% of people can do at all, and harder than 80% of software developers can do well? I fully believe so.

Post reply on HN